The Day I Saw The Maiden's Garland

I hadn't heard about maiden's garlands before my visit to Ilam Church where there are two of them hanging in one of the arches. They weren't easy to photograph without the use of flash, so this image of one of them is the best of a bad bunch! 

The garlands are made up of a maiden's gloves, handkerchief and some flowers, all created out of paper. The garland was carried on the coffin of an unmarried woman and remained in the church if no one challenged the lady's virtue. It's recorded that garlands were used in the funerals of Hannah Ditchfield (1834) and Sarah Rowbotham (1861) but the church cannot be certain that the two garlands on display actually belong to these two women.

It's not easy to see in the photo but the garland was actually a crown made of thin hoops of wood. This was often wrapped in white lace and ribbons, papers gloves and paper flowers were tied to it - the gloves are thought to represent a challenge to anyone who would question the maiden's reputation or her virginity. When the coffin was lowered into the ground the garland remained in the church, possibly fixed to her family pew - when the family ceased to rent the pew or the pew was replaced, the garland was thrown out. Many yellowing garlands did not survive the Victorian ecclesiastical spring clean of our churches!

The oldest known surviving garland dates from 1680 and is in St Mary's Church in Beverley in Yorkshire. The most recent can be found in Holy Trinity Church in Ashford-in-the-Water in Derbyshire and that one was made in 1995.

Maiden's garlands were also known as Virgin's Crowns or Crants. The priest in Shakespeare's Hamlet refers to the tradition when he refers to the burial of Ophelia - "Yet here she is allowed her virgin crants, her maiden strewments, and the bringing home of bell and burial".